Tag Archives: News

So everyone’s favorite social media site went public today. Meaning they’re offering stock at $38 a share. But thanks to some market mumbo jumbo that I don’t quite understand, casual people like you or I can’t buy the stock yet. (I have picked up some market knowledge from working for four months at a financial news site but clearly not as much as I hoped. Such is the plight of a (digital) paper pusher.)

For the past week, the news sites I follow at work have barely mentioned anything else besides FACEBOOK! What will it be priced? Is it a good investment? What’s the best strategy? And so on. In all the chatter however, I noticed that the people dominating the conversation are hard core investors who most likely to busy trading to be spending a lot of time on the site.

How’s that for irony? The people who know the site best are being left out of the conversation. There are really no social media experts chiming it. It’s all about money now.

For some reason this really irks me. Perhaps because I’ve been on the site for so long. Back when it was Boston area colleges and invite only. I got in as soon as they opened it up to high-schoolers, back when your network actually meant something.

Or more likely I’m making a big deal out of nothing and I’m just sick of how saturated the news is with basically the same story over and over. I can’t wait for Monday to roll around in the hopes that $FB will be old news. I don’t even care if it does well or not. I just want the media bonanza to be over.

By suspending and then un-suspending Keith Olbermann over last weekend, MSNBC committed an epic fail. They claim to be objective, but after this stunt, I don’t think any one will believe them.

Olbermann broke the rules by donating to political campaigns. He’s a broadcast journalist, reporting on the news (trying to be objective) and this is a slap in the face of MSNBC’s perceived objectivity. But what I din’t get a chance to ponder over in my Chronicle Column is whether there should be a distinction between Olbermann the average citizen and Olbermann who goes on air every night. The only problem is that political donations are public record. Anyone can request that info, so Olbermann’s donations would be easy found by his viewers. While he might be objective on air, his donations would say something different. However should he be denied a chance to donate just because of his job? I can see the argument going both ways.

This experience should at least teach MSNBC something about it’s ‘objectivity. Call me a cynic, but I think objectivity in journalism is a dying practice. It’s been dying a slow death ever since the rise of the 24 hour news cycle and the network news that went along with it. Whenever we are told information or news we need to carefully examine who is giving it to us and why or else we are too easily misled.